​​​​Alexandre del Valle

Alexandre del Valle

 

Commentator/columnist, researcher, consultant and university professor (PHD, History-Geopolitics). 

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Alexandre del Valle, born in 1969, is a geopolitologist, PhD in Contemporary History, Habilité à Diriger les Recherches (HDR in Political Science) at Université Nice Cote d'Azur, Professor at IPAG, regular speaker at Kedge Business School, LUISS Business School (Rome) and ILERI, and columnist and author of numerous articles and books on international relations and geopolitics.

 

Education

 

Del Valle got his PhD in geopolitics-geography (cum laude) from the University of Montpellier III (France) in 2015, under the presidency of Prof Carol Iancu (specialist of the Shoah/European and arab-islamic Antisemitism, Radicalism and the Middle East). 

Before that, he attended the Paris Institute of Political Studies and obtained a diploma at the Institute of Political Studies of Aix-en-Provence, and also a "Diplôme d'études approfondies" (DEA) on "Military History-security-defense" at the Institut d'études politiques d'Aix-en-Provence (Institute of Political Studies, with Prof André Martel), before specializing at the Università degli Studi di Milano in Milan (Italy) with Professor Albertoni (1994, Storia delle dottrine politiche), and obtained an Italian/french/European Diploma of "History of doctrines and political institutions". He also studied at Science Po Paris (Prepa-ENA and DEA on Arab world and radical islam ("politiques de réislamisations") with Gilles Képel).

His first research on the field were dedicated to the civil war in Lebanon during the 80eas/90eas. After that first contact with Lebanon, were he went several times, he studied the situation of christian Maronites in Lebanon and more generally the legal status of Jewish and Christian minorities in Muslims-Arab states, in cooperation with the Lebanese University Saint-Esprit of Kaslik (Beyrouth) and the University of Aix-en-Provence/IEP-Science Po-AIx. 

Del Valle is a disciple of famous french general Pierre Marie Gallois, a hero of the second world war ("Résistant") and former strategic main adviser of french president General De Gaulle specialized on nuclear and geostrategic issues. Alexandre also studied the method of "french school of geopolitics" with french Prof Yves Lacoste, and Islamic-Arab issues with other famous professors such as Bruno Étienne (Science Po Aix) and Gilles Kepel (Science Po Paris).

 

Columnist career

 

He is a regular columnist at Atlantico and Valeurs Actuelles, and before that at Le Figaro, Le Figaro Magazine, France Soir, Israel Magazine, La Une,  Il Liberal, Il Borghese del Nord, and is an regular collaborator of  prestigious french magazine Politique Internationale (led by Patrick Wajsman, french equivalent of Foreign affairs magazine). 

He publishes articles in other geopolitical magazines and reviews such as Daedalos Papers (Lillikas), Nova Storica, Herodote (Yves Lacoste), Outre Terre (Michel Korinman), Risk, Geostrategics, Les Cahiers de l'Orient (Antoine Sfeir), Geopolitical affairs Korinman), Stratégiques (Gérard Challiand), Géoéconomie (Pascal Lorot), and others.

 

Teaching career

 

He has been a lecturer at L'Ecole de Guerre Economique ("Economical Warfare Business School), 1999-2000); The University of Metz (2009-2010), he has been teaching at the University of Rome (Università europea di Roma (2010-2011), associated Professor at Excellia Group Business School (2015-2017) and full professor at IPAG Business school (since 2018, geopolitics and international relations teachings). 

He is the co-founder and member of the Scientific Council of Geopolitics of Daedalos Institute of geopolitics, based in Nicosia (Cyprus)). He is also a researcher at the Centre français de Recherches sur le Renseignement (CF2R, with Eric Dénecé) and at the Center of Political and Foreign Affairs (Hong Kong, CPFA, with Randa Kassis). He also collaborates with the Centre d'Etudes sur le Moyen-Orient (CEMO). 

 

Political career

 

Alexandre Del Valle began his political activism by being a member of the Rally for the Republic (French: Rassemblement pour la République, RPR (former Jacques Chirac party), and a follower of Philippe de Villiers "Mouvement pour les Valeurs". After that, he became in 1997 and a member of Rassemblement pour la France (RPF), a French "sovereignist-gaullist" political party led by famous Charles Pasqua former minister of internal affairs and Philippe de Villiers (former vice-Minister of culture and candidate for presidency election). Together with Rachid Kaci, Del Valle co-founded in 2002 "The Free Right" (French: La Droite libre), a liberal-conservative faction within the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP, now "Les Républicains"-LR). Their slogan was "Secularity, defense of the West and Freedom, and struggle against political correctness ". Kaci-Del Valle always kept their ideological independance by collaborating at the same time with Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, Charles Pasqua, Philippe de Villiers and François d'Aubert inside the "gaullist-sovereignist-conservatice republican right". 

When former french president Nicolas Sarkozy began its first political presidential in 2005, when he was the minister of internal affairs, Rachid Kaci and Alexandre del Valle's Free Right supported strongly Nicolas Sarkozy. After the geopolitical disaster of the French-British-American-NATO war in Libya, Del Valle decided to stop supporting Sarkozy's geopolitical dangerous and "neo-imperialist" vues in the name of the old "gaullist geopolical tradition of Independance". After the victory of François Hollande in 2012, Del Valle stopped political activism and dedicated himself to his researchs, teachings and publishing-mediatic activities.

 

Notable arguments

 

Since 1997, Alexandre del Valle wrote many books and articles on international relations, "new-Cold War" between the West and Russia, Balkans and Irak american new-imperialist wars and geopolitics of the Arab-Muslim world. His domains of interest mainly focus on radical Islamism, misunderstandings between the West and Russia; new geopolitical threats, civilizational conflicts; terrorism, as well as Mediterranean issues and "Multipolar World paradigm". He has been known primarily for his analysis of the "United-State-Islamism strategic alliance against the West and Russia/former Yugoslavia (1997-2000),  the "islamist totalitarianism paradigm" (2002), his criticism of Erdogan's "neo-ottoman, islamist-post-kemalist strategy for Turkey" (2003), and as a proponent of the "PanWest paradigm" (Cooperation between the West and Russia against Radical islamism and of the Red-green-brown alliance ", see after, 2006). Del Valle describes what he calls the new Western and European Munich in the face of Islamist fascism. Like Bat Ye'or, he also analyzes the "dhimmitude" which has gradually been befalling the declining "psychologically as well as demographically" countries of Europe which seem to be sinking into a condition which Ye'or has described as "Eurabia." More recently, his researches and books focused on the "New Christianophobia" (2012), the "Western Complex" (2014), the new definition of the "Real Ennemies of the West (2016), the analysis of the Syrian civil war (see his book the "Syrian Chaos" written with Randa Kassis, 2016,), the emerging "Multipolar World" (see his Belgium/Brussels based geopolitical Institute), and the description of the "Muslim Brotherhood Project" (see his book written with Emmanuel Razavi, 2019).

 

The "Pan-West paradigm"

 

Alexandre Del Valle has advocated for the creation of a new "pan-Western" organization which would gather more strongly the USA and old Europe. He believes America and Europe should convince Russia to join its alliance instead of supporting anti-Western coalitions led by China, Iran and Venezuela. In 2000, after the Kosovo war, Del Valle wrote that it is necessary for the West to criticize Washington and European mistakes when USA and EU supported the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and continue to do so. He also deplored the anti-Russian and anti-Serbian attitudes that agitated the Cold War period and incited Moscow to join the anti-western Axis. Back then, he condemns those expressing anti-American feelings in Europe, Latin America and Russia. He suggests the promotion of a strategic alliance between the three western keystone states: the USA, Orthodox Europe and Western Europe should build a stronger alliance in the face of Islamic threat.

 

The "Post-Kemalist" and "neo-ottoman"/"national-islamist" Turkey

 

Since 2004, Alexandre del Valle is studying the growth of political Islam in Turkey and its application to join the European Union. Del Valle opposes the accession of Turkey to the European Union. In his opinion, Turkey is neither European culturally nor geographically (except for Istanbul and Thrace). Even if a small Kemalist minority or the inhabitants of the posh suburbs of Istanbul feel European, the inhabitants of east Istanbul, Ankara or Anatolia feel closer to their Iraqi neighbors than to Europeans or Christian Greeks. Del Valle believes that NATO, which Turkey belongs to, is not the key for the entry into the European Union. Saying that it is necessary to integrate Turkey so as to show that Europe is not a Christian club and does not reject an Islamic candidate is not rational. And seeing Turkey as a secular exception and natural ally against Islamism thanks to the legacy of Kemal Atatürk is erroneous. Because the new post-Kemalist Turkey, led by Erdoğan and Islamic ruling party AKP, allows and claims back all that which was rejected by Atatürk: the hijab, the Islamic political parties and compulsory religious instruction at school.

Del Valle says that Kemalism was dismantled in the 1950s and 60s with the governments of Adnan Menderes and Süleyman Demirel and became politically dead under Turgut Özal, the architect of the re-Islamization which abolished the article 163 that had prohibited the Islamic parties. A country like Turkey which is ruled by a party stemming from an Islamic movement which has been attaining victory in elections since the beginning of the 90s is not any more a secular and kemalist country. But it is what he calls a "post-Kemalist" state.

The main theory of Del Valle is that Europe and the US have become the main allies who are capable of dismantling the militarist-Kemalist power in Turkey in the name of western democracy. The first goal of AKP is to avenge, after having perfected the de-Kemalization of the country, the affront suffered in 1923 at the time of the abolition of the Caliphate and the Sharia. If Turkey would access the European Union, Europe would have for its immediate neighbors Iran of the Mullahs, Syria – both sponsors of Hezbollah – and Iraq.

Finally, he advocates that the best way to preserve the Kemalist exception and secularism in Turkey would keep Turkey outside Europe and to build what President Nicolas Sarkozy calls a special partnership.

 

The misunderstanding between Russia and The West

 

Since the 2000eas, Russia and United States seem more enemies than during the end of the Cold war. The roots and responsibilities of this “strategical misunderstanding" between Russia and the US and the West” are shared by both sides. In 2003, President Vladimir Poutine's decision to stop the post-Cold war pro-western strategy (Boris Eltsine's reset with NATO) was based on the following observations: during the 1990eas and the 2000eas, the US and its NATO allies dismantled the Serbian/Yugoslav States in order to prevent the Russians to access the Mediterranean Sea and to reduce their influence in the Balkans. According to Mr. Poutine, in Irak, during the 1990 and 2003 Anglo-American wars against pro-Russian Saddam Hussein's Regime,  and in Ukraine and Georgia during the famous "colored revolutions" (2004-2014), the USA and the NATO European States extended western NATO's "neo-imperialism/domination" in the Middle East and in former Soviet Eastern Europe to the detriment of Russian interests. That for, the US/NATO countries supported directly anti-Russian and pro-Western in Bosnia-Kosovo (against Serbia), Chechenia, Georgia, Ukraine (against Moscow). Former George Bush US president (Sr and Jr) and Barak Obama’s administrations support to revolutionary radical anti-Russian forces in the "Russian close neighboring" and US/UE proposal of bringing Croatia, Baltic countries and other former USSR member states like Ukraine into the NATO (aiming to get rid of Russian military base in Crimea) provocated Poutine's reaction to invade Crimea. According to Russia, the Western countries (NATO/EU) could have avoided the present Russian-western crisis if they had respected Poutine’s claim to maintain Georgia and Ukraine as "neutral" geostrategic zones. The American-NATO’s strategic support of the enemies of Russia and the extension of NATO in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus (that Moscow considers as Russian influential zones) were perceived by Moscow as a "casus belli". according to M. Poutine, this hostile US "neo-containment" strategy against post-Soviet Russia since the 2000eas "proves" that the US will never abandon their anti-Russian strategy and that the only alternative of Russia to resist to the US/NATO hegemony is to build an "anti-western Axis".

 

Reconciliation with Russia and Del Valle's definition of the West rooted in its civilizational Judeo-Christian identity 

 

Alexandre del Valle affirms that the West should "build a New Pan-West organization and Security body" which would gather more strongly the USA and old Europe, trying to convince Russia to join it instead of supporting anti-western coalitions led by China, Iran or Venezuela. Of course, this aim is not easy to reach, because the misunderstandings and crisis between both sides have been constantly increasing for decades, above all since Iraq war in 2003 and Ukraine revolution (that became an horrible civil war), and the so called “Arab Spring” and Syrian Islamic revolution, also supported by the West and that quickly became a “radical islamist winter”…

Though it does seem to be “moral” (but geopolitics and strategy have nothing to see with morals or feeling), it means that Syrian-Bachar al-Assad anti-islamist regime must not be seen as our enemy (of course it’s not a friend either!), but it faces the same major enemies (Al-Qaida, ISIS, radical other islamist groups supported by Qatar, Turkey, Muslim Brotherhoods and Saudi Arabia), as well as Poutine’s neo-orthodox-tsarist Russia that fight since Afghanistan war those islamist groups. I just recall here that in 1999, when Poutine first came to power, I proposed to adapt NATO and Western strategy to the growing reality and new global Threat by attacking Taliban’s Afghanistan that hosted Ben Laden. Strangely, Washington refuses this “pan-West” alliance. We still pay now the high price of this refusal due to old fashion Cold War paradigm. Let’s remember that prof Samuel Huntington wanted to replace it by the clash of civilizations paradigm, but he was crucified because this civilizational vision did not comply with Politically correct-multiculturalist-globalist ideology... 

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From this point of view, Russia should be considered as the flagship of the Orthodox world, and a pivotal world power, and not anymore as an enemy. Of course, Russia is not perfect, its regime must be criticized and should be improved upon. However, the Russian regime is more a problem for its people than for the West. And the definition of an enemy must never be based in morals and ideology but on vital interests and survival. 

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According to Del Valle, America should better understand that it must fight the same enemy as Russia, Israel, France, Belgium: radical islam and China major threats. To put Russia and Belarus into the "anti-Western" camp was a major error, one that Westerners could ultimately regret. All of these post-soviet or western European-Judeo-Christian rooted countries are in fact linked by history, culture, religion, philosophical-political values and must gather against the same radical Islamist enemy. State’s interests can of course be antagonists in some fields, and it’s the case between Russia and the USA, but also between European Union and its American ally. But despite our differences, we can gather over our common interests and common threats instead of being divided and of wasting energy in European-American non-useful ideological and strategic disputes due to the past. 

The best two examples of realistic cooperation between States with divergent diplomatic and ideological visions are offered by the geopolitical collaboration between Israel and Russia and between India and Israel against a common jihadist-terrorist Sunni enemy. And the fact that Russia and Russia are close allies of Iran and that Moscow is a close ally of the Syrian-Assad regimes does not prevent Israel to maintain good relations with Moscow and vice-versa, on behalf of necessity and Realpolitik.  

The West should understand that the coming multipolar world is not anymore shaped by ideological representations but by geopolitical realism and civilizational survive. He should understand that our crusades-wars in the Middle East and our interference in the affairs of others in the name of the defense of “human rights” have not contributed to weaken or defeat our real radical islamist enemies. It has just contributed to increase that threat, while many non-western States see our democratic values and human Rights as a pretext of a new cynical and imperialist agenda. It’s time to focus first on our real enemies who plan to attack us, and to defend our democratic values and civilization in our western backyard instead of wasting energy by intervening in the affairs of those who reject our way of life but don’t attack us. Idealism sounds nice but led to many wars, while realism sounds cynical but can help to prevent other geostrategic disasters...

 

In favor of "a Multipolar world"

 

Anyway, building such an "PanWest" does not mean extending NATO and following the "counter-productive" neo-imperialism that has characterized the US foreign policy for decades during and above all after the Cold War Paradigm (military stupid US-western interventions in Serbia-Yugoslavia; Irak, Libya, etc). According to Del Valle, the present "multipolarization process" of the world means the end of the US-Western-Atlantic "unipolarism". Westernism, americanism and « Eurocentrism » is not possible anymore and must be replaced by a "sovereignist" Panwest isolationist strategy that consists in stopping intervening abroad or expanding our universalist values outside but defending strongly those western values in our lands, by stopping anti-western islamic massive immigration and collaborating more peacefully with Russia and India against China and the Islamic Global threat. Del Valle explains that, thought the United States is still the strongest country in the World and "THE Hyperpower", new outsiders, competitors or enemies such as China, Russia, India, Turkey, etc, don't accept anymore to submit to the US-Western Global domination and/or reject western dominating Values and political liberal-universalist system. 

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Multipolarity means also the « PIVOT » toward Asia and Pacific ocean, that are the fastest growing economies and outsiders States. Since  the 1980eas: Japan, and « Tigers », and « Asian dragons », and the China and India. This coming multipolar world is seen by the US as a serious threat: it's why the American Hyperpower must prevent the new « anti-hegemonic alliances" promoted by China, Russia, Iran and others. Since the 2000eas, emerging and (re)emerging countries are expanding their regional leadership and (re)creating their non-Aligned or anti-hegemonic own "poles" in their regional neighborhood. After the cold war, the world seemed have only one very strong pole, with the United States being the dominant system during this given period. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western countries (NATO member-States) failed to reset a new partnership and positive cooperation with post-Soviet Russia, steel defined as the "main enemy of the West". During the first post-Cold War period (1990-1999), western military interventions in former Yugoslavia or in the Middle East (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Mali and Syria) have led to increase radical Islam, terrorism and anti-Western strong reactions. Those military American-western interventions launched in the name of defending" democracy or human rights" were perceived by many non-western islamic States but also by Russia and China as "neo-imperialist campaigns" under the "hypocrite pretext" to support democracy and human rights. 

 

US geopolitical Controversy 

 

Alexandre Del Valle's first book, Islamism and the United States: An Alliance against Europe, sparked a first geopolitical controversy in the United States where he was accused to be an anti-american. In his book, (prefaced by former De Gaulle's nuclear/strategist Adviser General Pierre Marie Gallois), Del Valle claimed the U.S. government was deliberately using Islam and radical islamism/jihadism to destroy Europe (Balkans-Yugoslavia, Russia, etc) and to keep on encircling post-Soviet Russia ("new Containment" and "new muslim Belt" against Russia and its Allies). This theory was criticized first by Bat Ye'or in the Middle East Quarterly published in September 1998, and by french-american strategist Laurent Murawiec (see us del Valle's wikipedia page). Although Bat Ye'or reproached Del Valle for his very gaullist anti-american hostility to the US Administration, she congratulated him for his attempt to "courageously expose the dangers of Islamism" (see: https://www.meforum.org/1249/islamisme-et-etats-unis-une-alliance-contre). 

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After that, Del Valle met Bat Ye'or and since 1999, and they became closer and both agree that US Clinton's Administration strategy in the Balkans (helping radical bosnians and kosovar islamists againts christian Serbians and against Yugoslavia) was a terrible mistake that confirmed Del Valle's theory on the "islamist-american" alliance against the judeo-christian West. In another article published in the Middle East Quarterly in Spring 2000, a member of the famous american "Rand Corporation" Institute, Laurent Murawiec characterized Del Valle as "hostile to Muslims" and criticized his "anti-american" analysis of the supposed United States' pro-Muslim strategy during the Cold War and after (against Balkans, Russia and the EU). In his response to Murawiec, Del Valle wrote that "history and the tragedy of September 11 have proven me right." He claimed that Murawiec omitted to mention that his later books, such as Le Totalitarisme Islamiste a l'assaut des démocraties, have been labeled as both "pro-American and pro-Zionist" by its islamist and leftists adversaries. Murawiec himself has written an essay which also deplores the present pro-Saudi and pro-Islamist strategy and politically correctness of American presidents who never dared nominating Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism as the real enemy and the supporters of radical Islam.

 

In 2002, when Del Valle was criticized by far-right, left-wing/extreme-left magazines and pro-Palestinian/anti-Zionist and accused to belong to the "so-called" extreme-right, he answered that he never denied that his first anti-US book pleased to the french extreme-right and he admitted that he sometimes spoked with some controversial intellectuals from every political creed in the context of the presentations of his books, but he precises that his political "godfathers" were gaullists-sovereignists and former popular famous "Resistants" such as Alain Griotteray, Pierre Marie Gallois, the former nuclear and geopolitical adviser of Charles De Gaulle, Gabriel Kaspereit or Jean Matteoli. And he added that a geopolitician, a researcher, a columnist and a writer like him or other must always remain free, able to speak everywhere and with everybody, because the only thing that matters is what one really thinks, writes, shares. According to antisemitism, radical islam, he argues that the best way to fight what he calls "red-brown-green" extremisms is to shape strong counter-argument, and that it's more efficient than using a politically correct, moralist, excluding and counter-producing attitude. Last but not least, he reminds that he gave more than 1000 conferences in his life, at any side, in left, right or center wings, with Jews, Christians, Armenians, Arabs, Israelians, Greeks, antiracists, atheists, feminists, liberals, or sovereignists organizations. Del Valle even accepted to debate with Tariq Ramadan or Edwy Plenel. And when his adversaries only mention 1 or 2 controversial conferences, denying all the others, it's just the opposit of an academic attitude and a stalinian/disonest controversy. In the United States, he has good relations with Daniel Pipes, and he shares some of Samuel Huntington's geohistorical visions (except on WASP, see his last book "Who we are"), and main part of Edward Luttwak's geostrategical opinions.

 

See also Del Valle's Alchetron: https://alchetron.com/Alexandre-del-Valle

See also Del Valle's Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_del_Valle

See also Del Valle Wikiquote: https://fr.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexandre_del_Valle